Exhilaration
by Naatz
Summary: [one-shot] [no romance] A full moon in a werewolf's life.


**Title**: Exhilaration  
**Author**: Naatz   
**Beta-reader**: Sesshiyuki. Thanks! **  
Rating**: PG. **  
Disclaimer**: I wish I could make some witty comment about Harry Potter not being mine, but the bottom line is still "Harry Potter is not mine".   
**Summary**: A full moon in a werewolf's life.   
**Author's notes**: Took it from the LJ community _remuscentric_, challenge number five. Since I'm not old enough to post there, it's not posted there; but it's still meant to be in there. This was fun to write.   
  


**Exhilaration**

It was the full moon, and his body shook with anticipation. It didn't matter that Remus didn't want to change; all that mattered was the fact that the moon was going to come out in any second, and his body couldn't wait for the exhilarating change.

Only James and Peter were with him at the moment, already in their animagus forms. Prongs looked at him, his eyes blinking rarely. Wormtail sat by him, and Remus' hand patted him absently.

Sirius was serving a detention with Professor McGonagall for altering a Hufflepuff student's nose and mouth into a flamingo's beak during Transfiguration class. He'd not join them today.

The shack was familiar; the smashed furniture and the wallpaper that was peeled from the wall. The blocked windows didn't let any stray moonlight to stripe the Shrieking Shack's stained floor with its soft illumination. Although Remus couldn't see the moon, he could feel its pull. He was scared of the transformation, because it hurt; his body wanted to be free of the constraints of a human boy's body. His body wanted to be a wolf.

And a wolf he became. Angered, desperate and hurt flashed through his howl. His voice cracked because he couldn't control it and because of the change of his vocal chords. Wormtail escaped from his hands when they started to lengthen and change into paws, in order not to be killed or mutilated as they convulsed.

It hurt. The pain was unimaginable, and who even wanted to imagine such a pain? His howls became more frequent throughout the change, but he didn't care. The sense of power; the speed he could now achieve. He was stronger, quicker, and better. His fur would protect him, unlike the delicate skin of a human. His teeth and claws would attack anything with intent to harm, so even the fur wouldn't be damaged.

Remus snarled at Prongs as the animagus rose on his feet, the body of a stag he wore fluid and graceful. It took the werewolf a moment to remember that he couldn't harm the animal. All he wanted to harm was humans; he wanted to help them shed their pathetic body in favour of this superior form. Remus sat down on his hinds and looked around him. He had to attack something. Anything. Not an animal, because animals were perfect. All that was left for him to attack was inanimate objects. He eyed a somewhat recognisable chair and lunged at it with speed that wouldn't shame any natural wolf.

Soon, he became frustrated. How could the chair object his actions? How could a chair fight? But other beings were off limits. The only thing that was left was himself. So he attacked himself, scratching and biting and knocking himself into walls until he was bloodied and dizzy. The stag tried to block him at times, and sometimes it even managed to. The rat made distressed sounds and stayed in the corner, careful not to be run over by the big predator.

When the moon went down, Remus changed back. This time the howl he let out turned into a human scream of pain, because his injuries relocated themselves on his human body and the changing physics of his body were painful. He curled into himself, his blood staining the floor even further. The sun rays did not reveal, or even balm the werewolf's wounds, because the windows were blocked. Not even thin slivers would give light to comfort the boy.

Prongs and Wormtail changed back soon after Remus became human again. They helped him into a more comfortable position and took care of some of his injuries, joking about what they would do next time, when Sirius would be with them. When they returned to the castle, Remus headed straight to a cot in a certain section of the hospital wing -- the bed was practically his own by now -- and slept. His two friends went straight to class.

The next day, everything would return to normal yet again, for just another lunar month.


End file.
